A few months ago, my friend Julia, who I met while adopting our cat from the Fairfax County Animal Shelter, contacted me about doing a logo design for her. I was pleased to hear that she was starting her own strategic marketing service (and blog) for shelter cats, hoping to not only increase adoptions for hard to adopt cats, but teach others how to do so through marketing—Cat Hustler.

Julia had a very clear vision, and wanted something that was unique, eye-catching, and to the point. Not only would it need to meet traditional logo requirements, but since she is very into DIY and really creative, it would have to work on lots of different media. After we met to talk about the logo and her goals, I did some preliminary sketches.

After confirming that I was going down the right path, some preliminary logos were developed (a few below):

Julia really loved the middle one, and we refined it a little further.

Julia didn’t need much in the way of branding guidance, but we decided on fonts (Overpass, with Gill Sans as a secondary) and a color palette.

Client Testimonial

I’m really happy to report that the Cat Hustler loves it, and it has had great reception. Julia says, “It’s a perfect logo and people love it, but it’s also an exceptional specimen in the way of design. You knew it would be used beyond printed and digital applications, and made it work perfectly for a finicky DIY client.”

“I still can’t believe how easy Regina is to work with. She listened and advised with equal skill, cranked out mock-ups at record speed, humored the back-and- forth between details and minor edits like ear shape, and the timeline… just wow. Coming up with a clean, seal-style logo for cat stuff that hasn’t been done before is a challenge, and she knocked it out of the park.

Our two primary goals were met and exceeded. The first was to create something with such a clean, simple look that would 1) portray cat hustling as something that’s easy and 2) at least partially negate my large, unpolished presence when meeting people face to face. The second was to accommodate my DIY approach to everything. We didn’t know exactly how the logo would be used when designing it, but were sure that it would need to have lines and lettering thick enough to be cut with a Cricut and other untraditional (other than print & digital) applications. Thanks to the multiple files formats Regina provided, getting stamps made was easy. The design scales so well that a ¾” stamp was possible.

The second goal was a marketing objective; I wanted to make the branding inclusive rather than authorative. In other words, I want Cat Hustler to be a collaborative community, not a single person dictating best practices. Cat Hustler is a title one can give themselves, and that’s the make-or- break point in the branding. It’s what makes the logo desirable and why merch like t-shirts and decals will make effective tools for fundraising.”

It’s really nice to have a client that you can trust with taking your work and applying it properly.

Photos courtesy of Julia Grosz

It’s gone even further, and the logo can be found on a lot of places:

Photo courtesy of Julia Grosz

Photo courtesy of Julia Grosz

Photo courtesy of Julia Grosz

Photo courtesy of Julia Grosz

Photo courtesy of Julia Grosz

Photo courtesy of Julia Grosz

Photo by me

And that gorgeous gold foil black tote on the bottom? Julia very nicely made and gifted that to me! It’s so cool to see my work on so many different things, and with so many people!

Getting the post for June in right under the wire (May was lost by the wayside because it’s always a crazy month). Hoping to get back in the habit of sketching more regularly.

Self motivation has been an important thing for me lately, with sketching (ironically), with work, with working out. It’s kind of a weird thing because it can be developed, but it still comes and goes. This was also inspired by Gretchen Rubin’s book Better than Before, which is all about habits (and a really great read for my fellow nerds).